Silk Road

by Lynda Filler

“He’s right you know. They have no fear of detection. They spend most of their time chatting, smoking, drinking coffee. I even saw them wave at a police patrol car when he drove by. We take these guys down, and several more will show up in their place. This is poison at the very top Luke.”

  He knew Luci was thinking about her daughter Alice. She glared at Luke like it was his fault.

  “Let’s deal with this right now. You know I’ve got my ways to nail these bastards. We’re going to destroy this network in Britain, and then the entire Ivanov crime syndicate.”

  Luke stopped and listened to Luci’s plan.

  “The surrounding buildings are high also. A frontal assault will turn into a battle, and any children or women inside could get caught in the crossfire.”

  She waited for confirmation, then continued.

  “I will go in on the third floor. Luke, what do you think of a frontal non-assault, knocking on the front door and asking to speak to the proprietor. Say you’re from some municipality. There have been complaints of noise. Demand to speak with the inhabitants.”

  Luke nodded.

  “David, here’s what you and I will do.”

  The traffic slowed down on the residential street. Only cats stirred wandering through trash cans in search of discarded junk. The bus ground to an ear-splitting halt at the corner, before taking off in a plume of exhaust and screeching gears.

  Luci missed her parkour jaunts along the uneven centuries-old shingled rooftops of Paris so tonight she was eager to alleviate her anxiety.

  She found the perfect start. Away from observant eyes, she began her run up the wall to a first level parking garage adjacent to the townhouse. She grabbed onto a brick ledge before securing a handhold along a secondary ladder that took her to a low-level third story roof. From this building, she could make take a running jump to the connecting structure without any effort.

  She cat-crawled along a precarious ledge, a brick fell loose, and she held her breath for ninety-seconds. Then she moved on slowly, yet progressed quickly, signaling to the team below that she was half-way there.

  Suddenly she stopped. Ten feet away from her destination, she caught a whiff of Russian cigarettes. She slowly crawled forward. And then she saw him, looking straight towards her.

  Fifty feet below, a person holding a clipboard loaded with forms, knocked on the front door of the townhome. It was fifteen minutes after midnight, and not much was happening on the now quiet semi-residential street. The door was opened by a pudgy, bearded man wearing a holster tight across his bulging belly pointing a revolver directly at Luke’s heart. “What you want? It’s late. We are asleep.”

  “Whoa!” Luke stepped back deferentially his own weapon within a two-second reach. “You always sleep with a gun and holster?” Luke smiled his best rendition of a pleasant, civil servant. The annoyed man didn’t answer.

  “There’s been complaints of excessive noise and shouting from this house. Who lives here?”

  “None of your business.” The smell of onions and vodka poured from the older man’s body. He relaxed at Luke’s non-threatening demeanor and began closing the door.

  He never saw the blow coming.

  “Out for the count,” Luke whispered in his communication device.

  Luke quickly entered the premises and moved towards the sound of a TV at the end of the hallway. Before he got to the door, he heard gunfire explode from the roof.

  Luci watched the body break through the wooden balcony from the force of her weapon and tumble three stories landing on the roof of a small van. Luci took a run across the roof, quickly clearing the long drop to the alleyway below. At the last second, she slipped on the broken edge and barely pulled herself up to the now-vacant broken balcony of the townhome.

  She stood quickly, took her Sig Sauer in her left hand and a retractable stiletto in her right. She entered the open patio doorway, turned off the offending lights and eased her way towards the doorway. Within seconds she was canvasing room-to-room for Zaria.

  The first room had not been slept in today. Clothes were strewn around the bed, but the heat levels suggested vacancy for several hours.

  She moved into the next room and felt a body about to attack her before it hit. Her knife was faster than her assailant's fist. Blood gushed, and Luci moved away from a gushing artery. Another guard went down.

  Feeling a grunt before the third attack, she high-kicked her aggressor catching him on the chin and knocked him out. Two dead, one now tied with plastic ties, immobile while she continued her search.

  Luke shot the fourth guard right between the eyes. Luke’s anger knew no boundaries. All he could think of was his own loss when his seven-year-old daughter Amy was murdered underwater with her mother. He would not stop until the men responsible for the kidnapping and trafficking of these children were incarcerated or dead.

  David came rushing towards Luke. “We’ve got trouble! A car just pulled up. Three men are coming out, with guns drawn. They must have been contacted when we arrived or maybe security cameras feed into a central location.”

  “Get Luci. I’ll watch the entrance.” Luke fingered the additional artillery he carried and waited.

  David took the stairs quickly and ran into a man coming down. He raised his weapon to shoot when an explosion from above sent the man’s body tumbling past him.

  “Luci, you have the children?” Screams rose out from the various rooms above.

  “Not yet. I’ve been a little busy up here!”

  A sudden explosion from below shook the entire foundation of the front entrance. When the dust settled Luke yelled up.

  “Problem solved down here, but I’m coming up. Let’s find those kids and move out before the authorities get here.”

  A whimpering child cuddled with his sister. They were so frightened, both with tear-streaked faces, shaking in the darkened room. Zaria stood in front of their door, protecting the little ones with her life. She will die if need be, sheltering these kids abducted from their home so far away.

  “Zaria?”

  Zaria heard the woman’s voice as she burst into their room, but she was too frightened to answer. What if they’d sent someone to kill her so she wouldn’t be discovered by the police or be a witness to their travel.

  “Samaar? Is that you Miss Samaar?” Young Ali called out in Arabic.

  Ali and Fatimah ran from their bed into the arms of Luci. Luci tried to hold back her tears. Zaria stood to the side not understanding but knowing that this was a good thing.

  “It’s okay Zaria, she is our protector, and she has come to take us home.”

  Zaria finally let herself go and cried.

  40

  W ith the blessing of Prince Xavi, the international trafficking ring was slowly being dismantled. The team members that weren’t killed were taken to an out town undisclosed location to be interrogated appropriately by British special forces operatives. Xavi called in some of his friends from his military days who would oversee the

  41

  London Silk Road Train Station

  A special team composed of both governments, Britain and China, accessed freight container number 7747. From the outside, all appeared normal. What had tipped the Raven Group to something unusual was the carefully hidden ventilation system recessed into the roof of the car. Upon further and very precise visual inspection, the team was able to locate other anomalies inconsistent with the official engineering plans for each freight car registered by China Railway Construction Corporation Limited. The picture became more evident when RB measured the daylight off-loading of each container. He accessed all the camera feeds for the output and immediately ascertained that 7747 had only 25% of the product it was built to carry. Inside the inspectors found an entry carefully hidden, to a room containing very narrow bunks, a toilet, and a kitchen.

  Privately the Chinese government was extremely apologetic to the British Government. Hundreds of billions of dollars were at risk in trade and construction costs for what the C
hinese and British governments had determined was the future of trade for both nations. With the Americans increasingly imposing higher tariffs and rejecting pipeline deals and exiting NAFTA, the proverbial handwriting was on the wall. Britain and China needed to forge a stronger alliance.

  After a tense twenty-four-hours, the Chinese trade minister met with his counterpart in London. China cited the fact that this was not the first time for traffickers to bring cargo to London. As a matter of fact, his intelligence service said that the British police department seemed to look in the opposite direction when victimization was reported. The minister from China passed over an official envelope. The agent for the British government opened it slowly, saw the photos, and the list of corrupt officials attached.

  Words were spoken, the conversation continued in low tones.

  “We both have our challenges. Unfortunately, neither side is without fault. The Chinese government would like to remind the British government that if there were no market for human cargo, the goods would not be sent.”

  The British representative held evidence in his hands that could lead to several high-ranking officials losing their careers and furthermore facing prison terms.

  No notes of the meeting were taken. It was agreed that this was an ill-conceived plan unbeknown to the Chinese trade commissioner and that the culprits would be dealt with immediately.

  Britain had to be satisfied with this solution because the Prime Minister of Britain had already lost in the world’s view with the country’s departure from Brexit and her shoddy treatment by the President of the United States. If word got out that China—willingly, no matter what they claimed—had pulled a fast one on Britain and would have continued to do so without the help of the Raven Group, the PM’s image would take another harsh hit.

  On an overcast tortured day in a town designated as one of the worst cities to live in all of the United Kingdom, the trade minister from China and his counterpart in the United Kingdom finally inaugurated the East Wind Railway Line. It would continue to travel the Silk Road from Yiwu China to England. The newspapers hailed the event as the beginning of a strong partnership that would allow the United Kingdom generations of prosperity and control on inflation.

  In a country known for its intolerance of both dissidence and disobedience, twelve individuals with Triad connections were found murdered. The police report sited gang wars. Their bodies were dumped in a compost pile in eastern China.

  Several officials at the CRCC construction project were jailed for life without public trial or legal representation.

  In the Hong Kong headquarters of the most powerful crime syndicate in the world today an encrypted message was relayed from a representative of the President of the People’s Republic of China: Refrain from using this unique means to transport for your precious cargo until further notice.

  The incident in the Barking residence was reported to the public as a turf war for control of drug trafficking in Britain. A special commission was created with the oversight of Prince Xavi of England. Within thirty days, it was further determined that more than 400 women from Eastern Europe were victims of sex slavery. The information was downplayed due to the World’s fascination with the new royal recently born to Prince Xavi and Princess Sabrina.

  The campaigners against sex trafficking say the actual numbers run into the thousands. This does not include children kidnapped and brought to the UK for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Even though arrests have been made and businesses have been closed, they merely change locations and names and are open for business within days. Despite identifying vast numbers of brothels and sex trafficked victims, women’s groups say there is still little evidence of a concerted police effort to close down the premises.

  42

  Pemberton Ice Fields, British Columbia

  Raven Group Canadian Headquarters

  L uke insisted that Mike, Katie, and Miguel move into the Raven headquarters in Canada for as long as they wanted. After all, with 15,000 square feet hidden in the middle of the Pemberton Ice Fields, and several distinct suites for staff and family, everyone would have plenty of privacy.

  Miguel was seeing a therapist who specialized in sexual abuse particularly for children. The family could visit Whistler, the best skiing on this side of the Canadian border. And the bars, restaurants, and shops would provide diversions when everyone needed it. Father, daughter, and grandson were finding things they could do in common and creating good family memories.

  And no one understood better than Luke how essential it was to heal and re-build after trauma.

  “Listen to this.” Zach sat at the kitchen bar his laptop open in front of him. Maggs was cooking something with the pungent aroma of chili for Alice and Miguel.

  “The lawsuit against BackStage has been dragging on for years. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says the efforts of BackStage are inadequate and their supposed reporting to the center lacks in several areas. They say BackStage does not reveal all ads that have been flagged as being underage. They do not report when someone tries to advertise children under 18 years of age, and furthermore, do not respond to requests of parents to have ads of their trafficked children removed. They say BackStage is slow to remove ads that advertise children, guides traffickers in creating false pages for underage children, and instructs traffickers and buyers how to pay anonymously.”

  Mike’s mind was already on the day ahead. He was taking Miguel snowmobiling in the backcountry. And Maggs and Alice were here on a visit from Paris, so Katie wanted to hang out and take cooking lessons from the Michelin chef.

  Zach continued “This is unbelievable. The attorney for BackStage claimed that freedom of speech would be violated by forcing them to close their personals pages. Numerous writers and NGO’s say the harm they do outweigh protection under the first amendment.”

  Mike tried to keep his cool, and his mind distracted from the anger building inside him.

  “They fought it out in court. They won appeals and lost appeals. BackStage continued to fight but agreed to remove its adult sections from all its sites in the United States only because it claimed continuing acts by the government to unconstitutionally censor the site's content via harassment and extra-legal tactics made it too costly to continue its publishing activities.”

  At least someone was fighting this corporation who somehow could find justification for posting the picture of his grandson, a child, and a phone number offering sex.

  “Are you ready for this? It’s from Wikipedia.”

  “Continue.”

  “In March of this year, courts in Massachusetts and Florida affirmed that BackStage’s facilitation of sex trafficking fell outside of the immunity granted by section 230 safe harbors. They argued that because BackStage ‘materially contributed to the content of the advertisement by censoring specific keywords, it became a publisher of content and thus no longer protected!”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, so in April 2018 the CEO, pleaded guilty to both state and federal charges. Including but not limited to, conspiracy and money laundering. He also agreed to a plea deal in which he will testify against other alleged co-conspirators, such as, but not limited to, the two founders. At the same time, the company pleaded guilty to human trafficking, announced the Texas Attorney General.”

  Both men sat in complete silence.

  The sounds of laughter bubbled up from a young man named Miguel and four-year-old Alice. Today two retired Navy SEALs smiled.

  “You could say we helped make the world a safer place for your family and other children at risk. Today is a good day.”

  43

  Old Town Geneva, Switzerland

  H imanish sipped a nice Shiraz and went to work. He needed tight security, so he chose his safe room and multiple servers to bounce signals and make his work impossible to follow. He nodded at the final reports that flowed across his private accounts from a group of Navy SEALs and a group led by a man named Luke Raven. Once he�
��d read the reports and transferred the critical information to his personal memory bank, he deleted all trace of any communication from his server. He knew that RB would be doing the same in Canada.

  “Now the fun begins To’ak!” His ebony beauty purred contentedly always aware that when her master spoke in this tone of voice, chocolate was bound to follow. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “First we hit a few sleazy banks in the Caribbean. Did they really think I couldn’t follow the money?” More wine and Himanish chewed on a slice of sharp aged Cheddar.

  “I’d offer you some my Princess, but I know you’re waiting for the good stuff. We’ll have caviar later.”

  Next, he hit the banks in Kyrgyzstan and one in Moscow.

  “That should do it. Now for the best part.” After several transfers, the funds were laundered beyond recognition or tracing. They landed up in a place that no one would ever look.

  “Perfect. Let’s go see what we can find in the kitchen.”

  To’ak loved to see her master in such a good mood. It was better than the pacing and confusion that lined his face after receiving a letter a few weeks ago. He almost forgot to feed her!

  44

  Old Town Geneva, Switzerland

  H imanish oversaw the work personally. He used the same unique contractors he’d worked with when he purchased the entire top floor of the old building. Up until now, he’d not required the space to the right or the left on his residence. He kept it empty although a lighting system that would go on and off at preset hours said otherwise. The entire security system had been overseen by a top-secret firm owned by Luke Raven and updated to the latest technology as available. Himanish and Raven had kept up with each other over the years although no one was aware of their ongoing relationship. It was necessary for the nature of their work and the security of both.

  To’ak followed her master as he went from room to room. The ebony beauty wasn’t sure she liked the choice of design and colors. But she was never asked her opinion, so she merely sniffed the freshly painted surfaces and walked away. She was also confused by her master’s sudden nervousness, almost as if he felt insecure. It must be her imagination.